AFTER THE WAR: Kuwait; Palestinians in Kuwait Face Suspicion and Probable Exile

By YOUSSEF M. IBRAHIM, Special to The New York Times

Published: March 14, 1991

KUWAIT CITY, March 13—
Saleh Ismail stood trembling in front of the Kuwaiti security officer who had him brought up from a basement.

The 48-year-old Mr. Ismail is one of an unknown number of Palestinians being arrested here daily as Kuwaitis turn in those they accuse of informing on members of the Kuwaiti underground and spying for the Iraqi troops who occupied their country.

In the presence of the officer, Mr. Ismail acknowledged that he had told the Iraqis, under threat of torture, of two Kuwaitis whom he knew to be underground members. Palestinian's Fate in Question

"What we do with him depends on whether we find these two Kuwaitis," said the Kuwaiti officer, First Lieut. Tariq al-Amiri. "If they are dead or have disappeared, we will send him to the General Command headquarters, where those accused of war crimes are held."

In the last two weeks, life for the estimated 150,000 Palestinians who remain in Kuwait, out of about 450,000 who once lived here, has become fearful and uncertain. Kuwaitis say the anger against Palestinians is such that there is little chance most of those who left during the seven-month occupation can ever come back to live here again and relatively few of those remaining will be able to stay.

Palestinians and other foreigners forced to leave Kuwait have said that they had been tortured by the Kuwaiti authorities while detained under suspicion of collaboration. The Washington Post today quoted three former detainees, among hundreds expelled by Kuwaiti troops at the Iraqi border in recent days, as saying that they had been beaten and tortured. A Rumor Mill

None of the Palestinians interviewed here made such statements, though reports and rumors of abuses have proliferated in Kuwait's chaotic postwar atmosphere.

While many Palestinians are said to have collaborated with the Iraqis, many others are said to have protected their Kuwaiti neighbors and expressed strong hostility toward the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman, Yasir Arafat, for his support of Iraq throughout the gulf crisis. Nevertheless, the outlook for Palestinians seems dim.

"If I were a Palestinian, I wouldn't want to be here," said a senior Cabinet minister, a member of the ruling Sabah family, who spoke on condition that he not be identified. "We will protect them. We will give them their due. But they will be pushed out because life will unquestionably become difficult for them."

Ordinary Kuwaiti citizens are, by and large, hostile to the Palestinians and far less restrained in their comments about what should be done with them.

"The only Palestinians who can stay here are the ones that are absolutely necessary, and only for a few years, not forever," said Abdelaziz Abu Abbas, a retired official of the Defense Ministry. "I think we should abolish this business of permanent residence for Palestinians. When all is said and done, I do not think more than 30,000 Palestinians should live in Kuwait, and they should be the ones that proved to be absolutely faithful to Kuwait throughout the occupation."

That, a European ambassador said, is easier said than done. Shopkeepers and Bureaucrats

Palestinians once were a vital element of Kuwait's economy, running many of the small shops and service industries owned by Kuwaiti citizens and also filling the need for doctors, engineers and aides in Government ministries. Of the estimated two million people in Kuwait before the Iraqi invasion, only about 700,000 were native Kuwaitis and most of the rest were expatriates. Of these foreigners, the Palestinians constituted the largest and most skilled group.

"The reason things are going very slowly now is that when a Kuwaiti minister pushes the button on his desk, the Palestinian aide is not there to respond," the European ambassador remarked. "It is not easy to operate the first floor when the ground floor is missing."

Kuwaitis say Palestinians leaving the country will be able to move to Jordan, since most Palestinians who live here carry Jordanian passports. Such emigration would likely add to Palestinian nationalist passions and to unemployment in Jordan, where the Palestinians already make up 55 to 60 percent of the population.

At the Jabiriya police station Mr. Ismail on Tuesday denied having been mistreated, and he bore no signs of physical abuse, nor did three other detained Palestinians who were observed there today. Telltale Register

Mr. Ismail's fate was sealed the day after the Iraqis were driven from Kuwait. Lieutenant Amiri, who was himself a member of the Kuwaiti underground, found a register left behind by Iraqi security officials who had used the station as a headquarters. In the register, an Iraqi intelligence officer identified as Said al-Ito jotted down testimony given by Mr. Ismail on Sept. 17, a month and a half into the occupation.

In that testimony, which Mr. Ismail acknowledges to be true, the Palestinian identified two Kuwaitis who were clients of his mechanic's shop as members of the underground.

"Sir, I was forced to tell by the Iraqis, after they threatened to pull out my nails," Mr. Ismail said. He was interrupted by Lieutenant Amiri, who said the Palestinian was "fraternizing" with the Iraqis for months, received liquor from them, and that he was found living with an Iraqi woman when the police went to get him at his apartment.

"Isn't that true?" Lieutenant Amiri asked Mr. Ismail. The Palestinian lowered his gaze and murmured that he was sorry. Then he stood silently against a wall smeared with traces of blood from people who Lieutenant Amiri said were Kuwaiti victims of Iraqi torture in the stationhouse. Iraqi Torture Device

Next, Lieutenant Amiri opened his drawer and pulled out an electrical cord that looked somewhat like a stethoscope -- except that it had stripped wires to be placed in the ears, and a plug on the other end to go into a wall socket.

"This is what the Iraqis used on Kuwaitis denounced by Palestinians like this guy," the lieutenant said, pointing to Mr. Ismail, who appeared to melt into the wall he was leaning against.

A few miles away, in a largely Palestinian neighborhood called Al Hawali, Yosra, a 39-year-old Palestinian woman, sat in her living room telling of her anxiety about possibly having to leave Kuwait. She recalled that this is the country where she has lived since she was 13, where she married a Palestinian man who works at Kuwait University, and where her 16- and 20-year-old daughters were born and raised.

She gazed at her best frind, Soheila, a Kuwaiti woman, and said she was deeply troubled by what had happened on Tuesday at a checkpoint when the two of them ventured out. Riding in the Kuwaiti woman's car, the two women, who spoke on condition that their family names be withheld, were stopped by a Kuwaiti Army officer, who asked for their identification papers. Bad for Everyone?

"The officer told Soheila, 'You shouldn't ride with this woman,' when he saw that I had a Jordanian identity paper," the Palestinian woman recalled. "Today I heard at supermarkets they gave food to the Kuwaitis, but told Palestinians with Jordanian identity cards to return tomorrow. It's getting very bad in here."

Her Kuwaiti friend interrupted, saying that the officer at the checkpoint was joking. She added that the supermarkets had little food for anyone.

"You are exaggerating, Yosra, as you always do," the Kuwaiti woman said. "The country is in a mess -- that's all."

While the attitude toward the Palestinians is overwhelmingly hostile, Kuwaiti officials dispute a P.L.O. assertion that they have arrested about 6,000 Palestinians since the occupation of Kuwait ended on Feb. 26. And they say that they will do their best to protect those who are still here. But even senior Kuwaiti officials do not disguise their antipathy toward Palestinians and the P.L.O. Reduced Role in the Future

"We are not interested in the present leadership of the P.L.O., which has lost sight of the Palestinian cause," said Suleiman al-Mutawa, Kuwait's Planning Minister, in a conversation the other day.

"I think we will need some Palestinians, but they will have to be those who have not abused Kuwaiti hospitality," Mr. Mutawa said, "and clearly, from now on, only Kuwaitis will occupy key positions in the country's businesses and Government offices. I recognize that in order to accomplish all this in a civilized fashion, we must restrain the popular sentiments about Palestinians, which are quite hostile. We will need wisdom, firmness and understanding."

Many Kuwaitis say that despite many instances of Palestinian collaboration with the Iraqis, other Palestinians performed heroic deeds to protect them.

For instance, everyone here concedes that the director of the P.L.O. office in Kuwait, Auni Batash, issued false Palestinian and Jordanian identification cards to Kuwaiti Army officers to protect them from the Iraqis, until Iraqi officers ordered Mr. Batash to leave the country for Jordan. Perils of Generalization

"The picture is mixed," said Adel Qabazad, a Kuwaiti engineer who participated in the discussion in the house of the Palestinian woman, Yosra. "What is happening to the Palestinians at checkpoints used to happen to Kuwaitis, but many Palestinians proved to be more than good neighbors. They brought us food when we could not get out and they protected us. Others were traitors and collaborators. You can't generalize."

Photo: A Palestinian, right, in custody at the police station in Jabiriya, Kuwait, after having been found with false identification papers. He is among a large number of Palestinians who have been arrested in Kuwait.(Angel Franco/The New York Times) (pg. A1)